Kentucky police have named an alleged gunman who shot and killed the daughter of a former state lawmaker during a burglary at his mansion.
Authorities say Shannon Vince Gilday, 23, broke into C Wesley Morgan’s $6.5m mansion in Richmond, Kentucky, where he shot and killed 32-year-old Jordan Morgan as she slept.
Morgan was “shot more than once” during the attack in the early hours of Tuesday, according to the Madison County Coroner’s Office, while Mr Morgan and his wife also suffered injuries and were hospitalised.
Kentucky State Police say that Mr Morgan, who left office in 2018 after one term, brandished a firearm after his daughter was fatally shot.
Officials say that the suspect fled the scene in a white Toyota Corolla and have now issued a warrant for his arrest and charged him with murder, first-degree burglary, first-degree criminal mischief, and two counts of attempted murder.
Authorities say they do not believe that Jordan Morgan was deliberately targeted in the attack and have not established any previous links between her and the suspect.
State Trooper Robert Purdy said investigators have yet to determine if the attack was a burglary gone wrong or an attempted homicide.
“This isn’t the kind of incident or situation that we see a whole lot of in Madison County,” he told NBC News. “I know the family and it’s a tragic loss for the community. As a dad myself, I can’t imagine anything like that happening. Our hearts go out to them.”
Mr Morgan, 71, broke down in tears as he spoke to FOX56 about the loss of his daughter.
“I’m heartbroken. I can’t understand why, and would give anything on this Earth if it would have been me rather than her. I’d much rather it’d been me,” he told the news channel.
Mr Morgan said had been watching an episode of 1883, just hours before the shooting.
“She got up, put her arm around me and said ‘I love you, Daddy,’ and I said ‘I love you, too,’” he told the channel.
“And then she went to bed and that son of a b***h killed her.”
And he added: “Until the day I die, I will think of her, yes I will.”
The house where the alleged break-in took place has its own interesting history.
The 14,300-square-foot mansion was listed on sale last year for $6.5m. Inside, prospective buyers would find all the usual bells and whistles – chandeliers, Grecian columns, an atrium – as well as the “ultimate fallout shelter” buried underneath the house.
“It was built by someone who wanted the ultimate fallout shelter. He wanted it to be very secure, and he wanted it to have things that none of the other ones had,” listing agent Marilyn Hoffman of Hoffman International Properties told Realtor.com in November. “It’s a nuclear, biological, and chemical fallout shelter.”
The 2,000-square-foot saferoom is 26 feet underground, with 39-inch solid concrete ceilings and 15-inch walls, as well as a Swiss air filtration system.
In 2017, while in office, Mr Morgan, who owns a number of Kentucky liquor stores, was charged with illegally transporting alcohol across county lines, which was illegal at the time without a transporter’s licence.
Later that year, a judge dropped the charges, after a change in state law.
Mr Morgan would later go on to unsuccessfully challenge US Senator Mitch McConnell in the state’s Republican primary in 2020.
His daughter Jordan followed her father into politics by working on Republican Matt Bevin’s successful gubernatorial campaign in Kentucky in 2015. She served on his communications team until 2017, when she left politics to work as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Boone County, according to the Leader.
At the time of her death, Jordan was employed by the Reminger law firm in Lexington.
